Season four was full of lots of change. The dawn of 2020 certainly changed life for everyone.  And as Kevann visited Australia for 6 months, Donna’s husband Randy stepped into the co-host role for some time and Donna had some great conversations with a variety of interesting guests!  Lots happened in season 4!  Get comfy and start listening!

Season 4 Episode 48 – One Step Back and Three Steps Forward – My friend Carolyn Scheil isn’t a fan of introspection. She’s always held the opinion that it’s pointless to look back. She believed you should just go forward from where you are. That was until she read Soul Care by Rob Reimer. In this episode, we speak with Carolyn about this book and how it helped her self-awareness and spiritual identity. Learn why we can’t just modify our behaviour, we have to go back and correct lies we’ve believed with truth.

Season 4 Episode 47 – A Classic Contradiction – This week, Karen Taylor joins Donna to talk about a parable out of the imagination of C.S. Lewis. The fictional story, The Screwtape Letters, describes ways Satan tempts us and tries to trip us up in each chapter. Karen shares how this insight has changed her relationships and why the combination of COVID and this book has provided a phenomenal opportunity for growth and grace.

Season 4 Episode 46 – Hearing God’s Outside Voice – Chatting with Calgary Herald Columnist Licia Corbella is always fascinating. Apparently, God thinks so too. In one of the lowest times of her life, Licia began to hear God speak in an audible voice. She shares with us an amazing story that came out of obeying that audible voice. She also shares lessons learned through the book River Dwellers about prioritizing time alone listening to God, abandoning her tendency to being a “human doing” and becoming a human being”, and allowing the Holy Spirit to carry her like a river.

Season 4 Episode 45 – A McHistory of the Bible. – Donna welcomes her  history-loving friend Paul Gifford into the virtual blanket fort to talk about a history book, of all things. As a Sunday school teacher and avid Bible reader, it was Paul’s curiosity about what appear to be gaps in the biblical record that caused him to pick up this book. There is so much context surrounding the scripture narrative that requires deeper digging. Paul discovered that doing that digging can help us read between the lines of scripture and find deeper meaning.

Season 4 Episode 43 – Feeding the Gospel to Your Kids – Family friend Evan Menzies joins the podcast to talk about a book that totally changed the way he parents, as well as lives. They discuss the secret sauce of parenting, the idea that families are groups of sinners living under one roof, and showing vulnerability to your kids when you’ve done something wrong. Learn why every interaction with your child is an opportunity to feed the Gospel into them in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 42 – Confronting Racism with Wendy Lowe – This week, Wendy Lowe helps us Grow on the Go through and open and honest discussion about racism in Canada. She is the Senior Pastor at NEXT Christian Community, serving Christian compassion ministries as well as teaching leadership and team building in the corporate sector. Wendy talks with Donna about the racism hidden in our own hearts and how not acting hatefully toward anyone is not enough for a Christ-follower. Learn why confronting racism is Kingdom work and the ways we can each make a difference in this podcast episode.

Season 4 Episode 42 – Gait Traits of Jesus – Intimate Friendship – We all need people who know our hearts and have our backs. In this episode, Donna and Randy Carter discuss the importance of intimate friendships. These are the people who help us succeed in reaching our goals, rescue us when we’re in over our heads, are real and vulnerable with us, and fight for us when we’re too weak to fight for ourselves. Learn how to find that kind of friend and how to be that kind of friend in this Grow on the Go podcast.

Season 4 Episode 41 – Gait Traits of Jesus: Intimacy with God -Jesus pursued Intimacy with his Father from the beginning to the end of his life. What does that look like for us? This week, Donna and Randy talk together about how intimacy with God resembles emotional intimacy with a spouse or close friend. They talk about what we can do to stay spiritually healthy, sharing 7 ways to connect deeply with God, including the ways that work best for them based on their unique personalities.

Season 4 Episode 38 – Reboot, Rethink – Leveraging Your Pain – The power of our words can lift others up and drag them down. This week on the podcast, Donna and Randy Carter share personal stories to illustrate several strategies you can use to leverage your pain. They talk about the tyranny of our culture to dictate what we desire, and the necessity of filtering our values through the grid of scripture. Learn how we can respond to the embrace of our Father and the beautiful the future He has for us.

This series is based on the book Kick the Boring out of Your Life by Donna Carter. You can receive a special offer on this book by emailing donna@donnacarter.org.

Season 4 Episode 37 – Reboot, Rethink – The Power of Labels – Donna and Randy Carter continue talking about how to kick the boring out of our lives, discussing how labels can both damage us and empower us. They chat about how being casual with our purity is like dangling off a cliff and why the pain in our lives allows us to choose our identity.

Season 4 Episode 35 – Reboot, Rethink: Embracing Change After Pandemic –  A crisis has a way of nudging us to evaluate how we want to live and the changes we want to make in our lives going forward. So, what changes will emerge from this pandemic? Donna and Randy Carter discuss in this podcast, exploring how a state of upheaval can help guide us in the changes we want to make in our values and priorities.

Season 4 Episode 34 – Time to Change Your Prayer Style Pt 2. – Picking up from last week’s podcast, Donna and her daughter Kendall share their individual prayer journeys. They discuss the need for both the big picture and small picture prayers, meditation and their most profound answers to prayer. Plus, some great resources that will help you change your prayer styles in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 33 – Dealing with Conflict in Your Marriage Avoiding conflict is almost impossible when we are together 24/7. Even if we can avoid it, research shows that doing so is actually very damaging to a marriage. In this podcast, Donna and Randy Carter discuss dealing with conflict and share some of the best tools they’ve learned to help them live together well. Learn new patterns that will make your marriage stronger and more satisfying in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 32 – What Motherhood Can Teach Us About God – Just in time for Mother’s Day, Donna Carter and her eldest daughter Kendall have an honest discussion about being a mom. They talk about what motherhood can teach us about ourselves, parenting, and God. As Kendall looks forward to her first Mother’s Day as a Mom, she also reflects on how she was brought up and shares what she might do the same and different in raising her own child.

Season 4 Episode 31 – Calm Your Heart With Art – Creating and enjoying beauty can benefit us emotionally. In this podcast, Donna and Randy suggest ways to reconnect with your creative side and introduce scripture and science to support the idea that we can actually calm our hearts with art. Because we were created in the image of God we need to do more than produce. We need to create, and you’ll learn all about that in this episode.

Season 4 Episode 31 – The “I’ll Be Happy When…” Syndrome  – Learning to replace entitlement with gratitude can free us to move from a short term investment strategy to an eternal one. This week, Donna and Randy talk about times they bought into the “I’ll be happy when” mantra and how it stole their happiness. Learn what a starving Trinidadian grandmother and the Apostle Paul can teach us about contentment in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 29 – Following Jesus Won’t Cost Me Anything – This week on Grow on the Go, Donna and Randy talk about all or nothing endeavours like marriage, summiting Everest and following Jesus. Are these things worth it? Does the cost outweigh the payoff? Learn why we are called beyond involvement in our commitment to Jesus and the value that brings to us as Christians.

Season 4 Episode – 28 – My Friends Don’t Want to Hear About Jesus – We kind of like the lie that our friends don’t want to hear about our faith because it lets us off the hook: we don’t have to deal with our insecurities or risk offending anyone. Through the story of Jesus’ interaction with members of a Samaritan community, we learn the truth that contradicts this lie. Donna and Randy talk about the reasons it sometimes seems like our friends aren’t interested in faith and ways we can plant seeds of faith.

Season 4 Episode 27 – People Who Make Mistakes Deserved to Be Punished – With Kevann in Australia, Donna welcomes back her husband Randy to talk about how condemnation comes much more naturally to us than compassion. Psychology tells us the root of this lie is responsible for almost all emotional disturbances. Randy shares his particular battle with this lie and how replacing it with truth has changed his world. They then turn to the story of Jesus’ interaction with an unfaithful woman and learn how grace can replace shame and blame.

Season 4 Episode 26 – Why Does God Allow Suffering in the World? – The lie that “God is not good” is a troubling one, and a hard one to answer. In this podcast, Donna and Kevann explore the ideas people have about God based on the suffering they see in the world. They share from scripture and their own lives how God is intimately involved with us and speculate on why He allows evil to exist. Is God paying attention to us? Of course! Learn why in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 25 – Why “I Am Worthless” is Such a Damaging Thought – Donna and Kevann discuss how the labels assigned to us can impact the trajectory of our lives and why we need to identify the things that feed into the lie of worthlessness. They talk about the moving target of artificial, superficial and fickle standards our culture imposes on us, as well as what God has a lot to say about our value in the Bible. Get on the same page as God about your worth in this Grow on the Go podcast.

Season 4 Episode 24 – God is Like My Father – The relationship with our parents often influences our relationship with God, but when we believe the lie that God is like our own parental figure, we open ourselves up to someone else’s sin. In this podcast, Donna and Kevann share family memories and how it helped them know God, as well as discuss steps that can be taken to separate our negative relationships with authority figures from our relationships with God.

Season 4 Episode 23 – Why Failure Isn’t Fatal and the Power of Self-Talk -Believing the lie that failure is fatal can take you down some destructive roads. In this podcast, Donna and Kevann discuss how powerful self-talk can be and how the fear of failure can manifest in our lives. Learn how this lie can threaten your happiness and security, as well as the difference between striving for excellence and striving for perfection, in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 22 – The Timeline of My Life – Part 2 – Donna and Randy continue to unpack the learning associated with the seasons of our lives together. In this podcast, they share candidly about their pain, pride and shame. They also share more about the challenging season the family, but especially Kevann is navigating right now.

Season 4 Episode 21 – The Timeline of My Life – Some lessons are hard, others are exciting. In this podcast, Donna invites her husband Randy back into the blanket fort to reflect on what God has taught her in the different phases of life. They assign symbols and word pictures to each phase to help remember those lessons and invite you to identify a symbol for this season of your life. Learn to embrace what God is showing you in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 20 – Obedient Nobodies of the Bible : Ananias – A nobody who empowers others is really a somebody. In the last podcast of the Obedient Nobodies series, Donna and Kevann reflect on how one small act in obedience to a great God can change the world and even affect eternity. They also talk about how when we are obedient faith trumps fear and acceptance wipes out antagonism.

Season 4 Episode 19 – Obedient Nobodies of the Bible: Peter – A nobody who empowers others is really a somebody. In the last podcast of the Obedient Nobodies series, Donna and Kevann reflect on how one small act in obedience to a great God can change the world and even affect eternity. They also talk about how when we are obedient faith trumps fear and acceptance wipes out antagonism.

Season 4 Episode 18 – Obedient Nobodies of the Bible: Peter – Donna and Kevann explore the poetic symmetry of Simon Peter’s life with Jesus and how that relationship so profoundly touched Jesus that Simon later became Peter the Rock. Because even in the middle of their relationship Simon sometimes lost his way, he began and ended with obedience.

Season 4 Episode 17 – New Year Reality Check – How do you want to live this year? Donna and Kevann chat about their holidays, the difference between an intentional journey and a spontaneous one, and how to approach life in this new decade. Learn how to match your goals with God’s goals for you and how to build healthier emotions and relationships in this episode of Grow on the Go.

Season 4 Episode 16 – Obedient Nobodies of the Bible: The Newborn Baby – While it seems irreverent and totally inappropriate to call Jesus a nobody, his obedience took him from the ultimate eminence to complete obscurity and vulnerability. Donna and Kevann chat about how if it were possible to separate ourselves from the familiarity of the Christmas story, we’d realize how shocking it really is. They also talk about the intersection of Christmas and Good Friday when Jesus’ vulnerability caught up with Him.

Season 4 Episode 15 – Obedient Nobodies of the Bible: The Shepherds – In this episode, Donna and Kevann talk about AHA! moments when they earned something new about the ancient Christmas story. They discuss the where and why the shepherds were chosen and the amazing ways they foreshadowed Jesus’ mission. Learn from this rag-tag group of obedient nobodies and the significance of the shepherds’ perspective of Jesus’ birth in this Grow on the Go podcast.

Season 4 Episode 14 – Obedient Nobodies of the Bible: Joseph –  In this second episode of the Obedient Nobodies series, Donna and Kevann look at Joseph’s perspective on Mary’s pregnancy. The way God spoke to Joseph was different than the way he spoke to Mary but the result was the same. Immediate obedience. Joseph’s compliance in taking Mary as his wife came at a cost to him. It also came with an enormous responsibly that went far beyond teaching: protecting and providing for the Son of God.

Season 4 Episode 13 Obedient Nobodies of the Bible: Mary – Most of the people we see as Biblical heroes were nobodies until they stepped up and obeyed God. In the first episode of this new Grow on the Go podcast series, Donna and Kevann chat about the miraculous and mundane aspects of the Christmas story. They discuss all the reasons Mary could have said no to God and why it makes her obedience all the more astounding. From Mary we learn that our obedience is in direct proportion to how well we know God.

Season 4 Episode 12 – What to Do When God Invades Your Space – Author Deanna Oelke and Donna Carter continue their discussion about the Biblical gift of prophecy. They unpack the difference between the harshness of Old Testament prophecy and the totally different purpose of New Testament prophecy. In this episode of Grow on the Go, learn how to express a word received from God for someone else so it can be accepted by people in all different environments and at any stage of their spiritual journeys.

Season 4 Episode 11 – How To Tune Into God – In this episode, Deanna Oelke shares with Donna how our desire to hear from God can be the catalyst for receiving the gift of prophecy. They chat about how finding a safe community helps us learn to trust ourselves to hear God and appropriately share what we’ve heard.

Season 4 Episode 10 – How to Teach Your Heart to Listen – A deep relationship with God is dependent on learning to hear his voice. Author Deanna Oelke returns to the podcast to chat with Donna about how we often dismiss God’s voice when he speaks to us because his voice sounds a lot like our own. They discuss the “tells” of the Holy Spirit’s voice and why biblical knowledge is such a critical grid to filter the words we hear.

Season 4 Episode 9 – What Your Heart is Sighing For – Author Deanna Oelke explores with Donna the arena of the prophetic in this episode of the podcast. They discuss how experiencing a prophetic community wrecked her for ordinary fellowship and how God led her to pioneer prophetic teaching in churches where you wouldn’t expect to find it. They also talk about why having others in our lives who are operating in the prophetic realm is so important to living an exciting Christian life.

Season 4 Episode 8 – When Your World is Falling Apart – Donna welcomes her friend Karen Taylor to the podcast to discuss faith, grief, and what happens when what we plan isn’t what God has in mind. They talk about Karen’s transition to living in a developing country, how faith gave her the resilience to grieve the death of the future she imagined, and how to embrace the one God has planned.

Season 4 Episode 7 – Apostle Paul on Spiritual Safety – In the last podcast of their series in Ephesians, Donna and Kevann do their best to explain how to put on pieces of spiritual armour and why it is important. They talk about labels, demonic influence, and why there is no such thing as a conscientious objector to spiritual warfare. Don’t misinterpret what is happening in your life, learn how to recognize that we’re in a constant spiritual battle in the Grow on the Go podcast.

Season 4 Episode 6 – Apostle Paul’s Primer on Marriage – The discussion of Ephesians chapter 5 wraps up with the Apostle Paul’s thoughts on marriage and what loving our partners has to do with worship. Donna and Kevann discuss whether or not husbands and wives need the same things from each other, brainstorm ways wives can communicate respect to their husbands, and how husbands can meet their wives’ emotional needs.

Season 4 Episode 5 – Apostle Paul on What Light Looks Like – Are we pretending to be better Christians than we really are? In this podcast, Donna and Kevann confess their struggles with being light in the world and explore Ephesians to see what Apostle Paul has to say about it. They discuss authenticity and truth, as well as depression and joy. They also chat about our tendency to be controlled by things other than the Holy Spirit and why we have to be very intentional about the story we’re telling with our lives.

Season 4 Episode 4 – Apostle Paul on How to Give, Receive and Be in the Body of Christ – Donna and Kevann talk about what happens when a body turns on itself, both medically and spiritually, as well as the special abilities God gives us to help with the health of the church. They discuss how only Jesus decides who gets what ability and that they are all necessary to the health of our Christian community. Learn how to navigate hard conversations Christians need have with each other, calling out those who do harm to the body.

Season 4 Episode 3 – Apostle Paul on Supernatural Love and Consequences – Donna and Kevann talk about what it means to experience the uncontainable love of God (described in Ephesians chapter 3) when we don’t even understand it. They discuss how our parents’ imperfect love can break our love gauges and what we can do about that. Unpack with them why God, like any good parent, disciplines us and how even that is an expression of His perfect love.

Season 4 Episode 2 – Apostle Paul on What Would Jesus Do? Seriously. – Donna and Kevann fight thunder, a panting dog, and memory lapse to bring you Paul’s teaching on what it means to be the body of Christ. They wonder about the ways we, as individuals, represent Jesus to the world and how representing Him means being interruptible. Learn how to form the habit of asking the question, “What would Jesus do in this room at this moment?”

Season 4 Episode 1 – Apostle Paul on Games Rings and Other Things – It’s a brand new season of Grow on the Go and Donna and Kevann begin a new series by talking about writing, both their own and the New Testament’s most prolific writer, the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote to a young Gentile church in the Greek city of Ephesus from a prison cell and the ladies focus on the themes of Ephesians Chapter one, including what Jesus leaves for us in His living will, receiving God’s engagement ring, and the fact that no matter the game, God always wins.